I know it's Slashdot and nobody expects you to RTFA, but you didn't even read the summary:

Hey, I just wanted to ask about treatment for this disease that my potential daughter has in FUCKING UGANDA that I've been exposed to, but I'm not going to really be clear in my mind as to the symptoms, especially after I've already come back to the United States and am walking around in a large metropolitan airport.

1) I'm pretty sure she'd know it's truly her daughter, but maybe you want them to do a maternity test first?2) The daughter wasn't in Uganda at the time of the phone call.3) The summary doesn't mention that the mother was ever exposed or at risk of exposure.4) The daughter (not the mother) was in the airport and, according to the summary (I know, I know... who bothers to read all the way through before posting?) she was pretty clear the bumps were from bed bugs.

The one part of your post that is seemingly correct is the subject line. However, that was probably a coincidence as you probably intended to be pointing the "Ha ha, you're stupid!" finger away from yourself.

I've never been able to find a satisfactory answer to this one, but why hasn't Harvard tried to argue that Facebook belongs to them? When I was in school, there was a policy that anything invented or created while a student using university resources is the property of the university, not the student. Isn't that why Dean Kamen didn't graduate? To keep his ideas and invent them on his own?

Does Harvard not have such a policy? Is there really no evidence that he used University resources in creating it?

... call the service provider and ask them is they take a US credit card instead of posting your question on Slashdot. If that fails, I'm sure there are plenty of other more suitable forums for this discussion elsewhere on the web. (A simple google search found plenty of discussions on internet service in Canada... suprise!)

I'm not sure why Slashdot continues to pander to a US-centric audience, and waste space on personal interest stories instead of "news for nerds" and other "stuff that matters".

What's next? A story on how "My Grandmother can't get on facebook and I think it's a problem with this box of flashing lights plugged into the wall, can someone help me?"

Amlothi writes: An unexpected and unwanted text message from a wireless company prematurely exploded a would-be suicide bomber’s vest bomb in Russia New Year’s Eve, inadvertently thwarting a planned attack on revelers in Moscow, according to The Daily Telegraph.Link to Original Source

45 minutes out of Hawaii, the captain turned the "Fasten Seats Belts" light back on - at the first excuse for a mild bump - and then left it on uninterrupted for the next 7.5+ HOURS - in smooth. clear air - all the way until we landed - 36 hours later, and my feet and ankles are STILL swollen.

Did you happen to mention to the flight attendant that you were uncomfortable, or that you had a medical reason to need to stand occasionally? Perhaps the pilot simply forgot that he/she had left the light on, and a simple polite reminder from the FA

On they way out, it cost $25 per checked bag, and one, which was over 50lbs (52.7 to be exact), cost an ADDITIONAL $50 over that.

Did you check the baggage policy before you flew? I think most people by now realize that almost all carriers charge for checked bags now, due to the ad campaigns (noteably by Southwest) about how they allow free checked bags. I suggest you make informed choices before purchasing, as that information should be clearly available on each airlines' website.

Of course, there's no free food anymore, but they'll SELL you a chicken sandwich for $10, or a can of Pringles for $4.50. What I found interesting was that they don't take cash anymore - just credit/debit cards - I guess that "...all debts, public and private..." printed on the money doesn't mean anything if you're an airline.

They don't take cash at all, or they don't carry change? I know it is a burden for airline crews to make sure they had a supply of small denomination bills for each flight. On all of my flights recently, they have asked for exact change and will accept it.

Note, the American Airlines website states that food "can be purchased" with credit and debit cards. It does not state that cash is not accepted. In fact, it notes that some flights are not able to accept cards at all.

If you read the article, it notes that the effects were short term (~1 week). However, it doesn't say why. Probably because they haven't actually fixed the cause of the diabetes, which, as you noted, is often autoimmune in nature.

It sounds to me kind of like this:

Problem: My car isn't moving.Reason: There isn't any fuel.Solution: Push the car down the hill.

They are "fixing" the problem while ignoring the actual cause of the problem. Therefore, the problem will continue to reappear.

I guess we'll have to wait for the actual paper to be published before we can really discuss the science intelligently. In the meantime, we have a fancy headline that people will forget by the time the actual paper comes out and we realize that the headline is complete BS. According to the article, the research team is presenting it at a meeting currently. I presume this means that they haven't completed writing up their findings yet. (I couldn't find the article online.)

The problem with science reporting in the mainstream media is that they jump on anything that can be given an interesting headline, but the reporters never understand (or bother to analyze critically) the actual science. This is an ongoing problem and annoyance to many scientists who would prefer that the public not be misled.

For example, the Slashdot article posted a few days ago about 2 father mice producing offspring. In one paragraph, the media is saying "We can save species from extinction even if there are no females left!" and "This will allow gay couples to have their own offspring". In the very next paragraph, they are explaining that the researchers also needed 1) a blastocyst, and 2) a female womb. Do they bother to care or speculate where we are going to get those things if there are no females involved? Of course not.

Posted
by
timothyon Saturday November 06, 2010 @06:33AM
from the cross-cultural-croaking-comparison dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this intriguing snippet: "Older Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, but they live as long or even longer than their English peers, according to a new study by researchers from the RAND Corporation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. Researchers found that while Americans aged 55 to 64 have higher rates of chronic diseases than their peers in England, they died at about the same rate. And Americans age 65 and older — while still sicker than their English peers — had a lower death rate than similar people in England, according to findings published in the journal Demography."

Ok, so the Slashdot post links to Tech Dirt ad Tech Dirt links to Christian Science Monitor and Christian Science Monitor fails to link to the original article.

Anybody have a link to the ACTUAL article in the People's Daily? I want to see how badly those snippets were taken out of context, or if they are the result of glorified translation from the original Chinese.

So, first I am in China for the chicks. Then, in your next post, I'm in China because I couldn't get a job in my home country and I can take advantage of the demand for English language teachers in China.

For the record, I'm married, I have an advanced degree, and I don't teach English. I am working for the same company that I worked for in my home country - just from a different location.